Running Android apps on Linux: It's very close, but...
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- Опубліковано 11 лип 2024
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00:00 Intro
00:46 Sponsor: Get some free insight on the Security of Linux
01:49 What is Waydroid, and how to install it?
06:22 How to install applications
08:50 Add Google Apps and Services
11:25 Why run Android apps on Linux?
13:55 Sponsor: Get a Linux laptop or desktop from Slimbook
14:30 Support the channel
💡 USEFUL LINKS FOR WAYDROID
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Running Android apps on another system than Android requires a container, like what Waydroid implements. Waydroid is based on LineageOS, based on Android 10, and can access any needed hardware. It can run Android apps on x86 or ARM cpus, it's fully open source, it can add your Android apps to your menu, it can display apps in their own windows or fullscreen, it can display the Android Ui for navigation, and has near native performance.
Waydroid lets you install .APK applications, which you can download online relatively easily, but to begin with, you might want to get an app store, which will make this process a lot simpler. Let's go with F Droid, which has tons of open source applications for Android, that will also work on Waydroid.
waydroid app install and then the path to your APK file, and hit enter.
You'll then have to restart the system service for Waydroid, using
sudo sysctemctl start waydroid-container
Your app should now be added to your applications menu, and you can open it through there. From F-Droid, you can install any application you want, and they'll also get automatically added to your applications menu. Of course, at first install, you'll need to enable installing applications from an untrusted source, like on a "real" android device.
You can also add the Google Apps and the Play Services.
I left a link to the install instructions, it's not an easy, one click install by any means, and you'll have to run multiple command lines, install a few packages on your distro, register your "fake device" with Google, clear the Play Store cache, install magisk and more. Once that's done, though, you do get a fully functional Android system, complete with Google apps, and the Google Play Store. You can login with your Google account, and use Waydroid as a full Android system.
App apps that require the Google Play Services will also work, including youtube, Google Maps, Gmail, and a lot more. You'll also be able to download apps you might already have purchased in the Play Store on an Android device, if you so choose.
I couldn't find certain apps in the Play Store, though, like Netflix for example, which might be a country-related issue. Some apps would also crash at startup, like Amazon prime Video.
Xbox Game Pass worked, I could navigate the UI and launch a game with Xcloud, but after that, games would just not display anything, sticking to a black window, which I had to quit to resume using Waydroid. My banking app also failed with an error message telling me the service wasn't available.
Twitter worked perfectly, Duolingo also did, although in Portrait mode. - Наука та технологія
Download the State of Enterprise Linux Security Management Report here: tuxcare.org/ponemon_report
Yes
what
I wonder how it compares to Anbox
I mean Anbox does more of a Wine not an emulator way afaik
bro you really just teleported closer to me in the end because i have sponsorblock
NO.
honestly one of the most frustrating things in the linux community is when asking if something works or how to get something to work being confronted with a "but why would you want to use that?". its a computer, a tool capable of so many different tasks so actually discussing if and how something works is always great to see. thanks for the great videos man!
True dat
Literally this
people who believe they are superior to other people and making fun of them for not knowing what they know are not superior at all
Yeah, as much as I hate Android, there are just certain things that are only available through android apps.
well said
Nick, just wanna tell you that Android doesn't use Dalvik anymore since Kitkat (4.4). It has been replaced with Android runtime (ART)
@@adam.maqavoy What do you mean? I cannot understand your message
Haha was just about to comment this 😂
@@carlod1605 well it is a note to self
But you are still (almost) always told in guides to wipe your dalvik cache in TWRP when flashing a ROM, even on Android 10+… Why?
@@therealjesusofficialhd I'm interested in the answer for this question
i used waydroid on my terrible AMD A8 APU with radeon 5 graphics and 3.3GB RAM, and it was actually very good and did run the UI and apps fine af, waydroid is truly amazing
Yeah the performance is incredible
@@TheLinuxEXP does it have any chance of working in raspberry pi... :)
@@vaisakhkm783 it works on ubuntu touch which also use ARM
Indeed! I have the same terrible AMD A8 APU which worked fine for me for 4 years since i bought it but it was quite slow and lackluster. Then windows 10 updates since 2019 broke GPU drivers from AMD as well as HP's release drivers, then rolled back to windows 7 which was some reason buggy and would occasionally throw blue screen. Finally i gave Ubuntu a try and my laptop has become way useful again since then and was a good companion through COVID times.
What is your distro? 3GB usually isn't much even for phone, i think
Streaming apps would never work because of lack of widevine drm support (which those apps use). Even if they could add support, it would probably be only L3 widevine meaning only 480p/540p. L1 widevine for 1080p streaming is extremely unlikely
Yea, it may take 100 years (maybe) to do that
Yes, this is most likely the reason. The funny thing is, it's a shot in the foot. The services are trying to fight piracy, the side effect is that the services become unusable, which is why honest users abandon the services and ... download pirated copies instead.
This is probably not even the (primary) problem as Netflix for example should allow 720p on uncertified devices. Probably the bigger problem is Google SafetyNet that will detect Magisk and waydroid will also fail the Hardware attestation anyway and that's what most streaming apps, banking apps and apparently even McDonald's check.
Unfortunately the workaround involves, among other things, tricking the system into spoofing hardware authorization, which involves tinkering with the Anbox/Waydroid image file with tools like Magisk - good luck with that!
Also heard that they won't work on x86 processors, so Netflix might not even appear because of your processor.
Just installed waydroid a couple minutes ago, what a timely video. Great content as always!
Thanks :) Great minds think alike!
I'd love to see this project take off, imagine a future where your phone runs proper Linux, with a touch friendly UI, with support for all of the support Android phones get
We're almost there already, I loaded Waydroid on my Pinephone Pro, it has a glitch where you can't have hardware acceleration enabled, but it worked, got NewPipe running, it was very choppy, but it ran.
@@luigimaster111 very cool, how well does it work for apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Moovit (navigation app, idk if it's popular outside of my country), and other apps that could be deal breakers if they don't work?
@@YonatanAvhar You have the same limitations as any custom roms on a Android phone has and some apps might not work that well, its still experimental but it really looks promising
@@YonatanAvhar I really only managed to test NewPipe, waydroid as a whole was just too choppy without hardware acceleration for me to really view any further testing as necessary. Once that bug is ironed out I'll delve back into it. Others have got Waydroid working on the original Pinephone, and it may be the case that Waydroid doesn't get a lot of hardware access, so apps that use things like the GPS, Microphone, and Camera extensively might be useless. Also it prevents the phone from suspending while the service is running, so your phone chomps through battery even when the screen is off unless you kill that service. With that particular issue most messaging apps are kinda unusable.
Also, removing Waydroid corrupted my Linux install for some reason, might have been user error but I can't fathom where I screwed up, couldn't get to a terminal at all so I had to do a fresh install.
Still early days for linux phones, in terms of them being a fully viable alternative I think we are very close, possibly only off by a few years.
This gives me so much hope ❤🎉🎉🎉
_Installing an app and crossing your fingers that it is going to work_ - Well, that describes my experience so far with non-native apps on Linux in general
Some Comments -
1. 12:18 you don't need to start the service every time you boot your computer, just do "sudo systemctl enable waydroid-container" and it'll start on boot.
2. 12:23 I believe you can setup waydroid with a GAPPS image of android by running the init command with '-s GAPSS' option upon setup. It previously did not work on fedora I believe, but the copr maintainer just updated it to work today so unfortunate timing I guess.
3. Custom images of android don't pass play store's security test and also don't have widevine L1 certification. Media and Banking apps will either not show up in the play store at all or will not work properly as you experience. It is also not trivial to get around that.
I thought about enabling the systemd service, but I wonder how heavy it is on your system resources... Keeping the Android system running constantly in the background must take quite a bit of RAM, I figured that's the reason why they don't enable the service on install
It is upto you thought.
My point was that not being able to run ob boot was presented as a criticism.
Another comment pointed out that Android doesn't use Dalvik anymore. I also wanted to mention that Dalvik is not a Java virtual machine. Dalvik is a register-based bytecode virtual machine, while Java is stack-based. Dalvik was designed alongside the tool "dx" that converted Java bytecode into Dalvik bytecode.
There has been a lot of a lot of misinformation about Android from the very beginning that it runs on Java or that it runs Java applications, but neither of these is true. You can write software for Android in a Java IDE (though now Kotlin is preferred), but that all gets converted to Dalvik bytecode before it ever touches an Android device. There's no reason why you couldn't write Android software in any other language, assuming the libraries and APIs you needed were ported over and the tools existed to compile it into Dalvik bytecode.
On modern devices ART recompiles the Dalvik bytecode to native CPU binary code during installation, but still having Dalvik in the .apk allows legacy devices to still run your app.
I guess maybe this sounds nitpicky, and I don't mean for it to. It's just that some brilliant engineers went to great effort to build a portable virtual machine designed to run on a variety of hardware and architectures without the bloat of J2SE or the limited feature set of J2ME, and it's a shame that everyone ignores what they accomplished and just calls Android "java-based."
i think people must donate to this project
this is so cool android support must be on linux and if android games worked like windows omg we could get more audiences more software more apps it should bee
@@terrydaktyllus1320 WTH
@@terrydaktyllus1320 I didn't understood your point. Running Android apps as Isolated apps in Linux how can it affect your privacy?
It will be equivalent of having a Android phone. It can't get what your doing in your Linux.
And yes it will collect data if only you installed Gapps in your Android.
And yes it won't affect your privacy as I think apps installed in Wayland can't access your Linux data.
If i am wrong correct me. 🤔
And about "English" I could see tha clearly.
I think that this would be much better if it was:
1. A flatpak or something
2. In the settings, it has a place to add Google apps/comes with something like F-Droid by default.
Having to open a terminal once means your app has failed at being user friendly imo. The terminal is great, but it should not be the only option to do something. There are exceptions to this, with things like more "pro" user tools, but a simple app/feature should be able to be done with a gui.
Absolutely agree
Im not sure they can legally include an option to add google services
@@realtimestatic you can often get around something like that by just including a link to instructions.
You know this requires custom kernel modules, right? And they provide very clear instructions on what you have to do. If you want to do something like this which requires tinkering, but you don't want to use the terminal because... you can't read(?), I'm not sure where the issue lies. Of course, the terminal is inaccessible and all that stuff because apparently, zooming, screen readers, eye trackers, etc. don't exist... but really?
@@SkyyySi Installing and using an Android app should not be seen as "tinkering"
If any tinkering is involved you've already lost most people, which matters a lot of you want to have more than a couple hundred users to attract contributors and enough donors to make it worth spending your time on.
Also using the terminal to access gui applications makes for a dogshit experience.
Idk why you're so against people's opinions on what could be improved.
something I should point out is that waydroid works on pinephone, which is great since it increases the usability of Linux phones by a buttload
I have a Microsoft Surface Go 2 running Fedora. This could be amazing for that device! I could have the power of a full blown Linux distribution and the convenience of Android tablet apps all in one.
Except there are barely Android apps optimized for tablets :P
@@AninoNiKugi lol or so you think, times have changed ever heard of the chrome book
i am installing this on my asus transformer mini. i also am running fedora.
@@AninoNiKugiGoogle,Oneplus,samsung, xioami , honor ,huwai all are selling android tablet. Don't you think google forced developer to make android and android apps run better on tablet.
I tried waydroid on both an amd and intel gpu. Intel was almost perfect while on amd it was prone to stutters and micro freezes. Kinda funny since the latter is probably 10x more powerful.
Yeah I had stutters on AMD as well
AMD virtualization tools are not so good.
Intel Linux drivers are superior.
Strange that it seems common I had no problems at all on amd, maybe architecture? I run it on a Vega 8
@@zPackss The gpu has nothing to do with this. Is the Intel's ISA that's just better
Some apps won't work on an x86 desktop because they are specifically built for arm / aarch64 architecture, but it should work on a Raspberry Pi.
Another awesome video. Keep up the great work, Nick!
You are a Genius. Your UA-cam ads are VERY well invested. More Amazing Topics i beg you
< 3
My use=case for running Android apps on Linux would be to allow the random apps that come with so many gadgets these days, manufacturers seem to think that you don't mind filling up your phone with apps to configure your router, that remote security camera you might use every few months. It seems every bit of hardware, even ones that don't attach to a phone, have an app, and in many cases the app supports options that aren't available through other configuration routes, if there are any.
This system looks promising, so maybe soon it may become a little more useable. It's definitely worth keeping an eye on - although I'd need Nvidia support given all my PC's and laptops have Nvida graphics....!
@@terrydaktyllus1320 If you'd watched the actual video, you'd see that the waydroid program currently doesn't work well with Nvidia video drivers, and its stated it works best with Intel video drivers.. This is discussed at some length, so maybe you need to watch the video again. Also, as an example I have a netgear repeater that recenttly I had to stop using because it can only be configured with the "app" because for some reason the web interface decided it was using an obsolete version of TLS. Unfortunately my phone is too old for the app to work properly, so its going to landfill.
Yes, normally I would choose devices that contain standard configuration interfaces, but sometimes it would be nice to just run up the android version of the app if it were possible. In a "containerised" environment it might even be possible to tell if it is trying to "phone home", which would be useful information not available to you if you run the app on a phone.
As to what video card I choose to use on my PC and Laptop, I would say that was my choice, and one I have made based on the experience I have had over the 18 years I have been using Linux and my main operating system, and the games and CAD systems I choose to use..
I suggest it is possibly you that doesn't know what they are talking about, respectfully or otherwise.
@@terrydaktyllus1320 maybe don't make assumptions about how other people use their systems and their time if you are trying to "help" them. . Nvidia drivers have always worked very well for me, I have used other video cards including AMD and Matrox, and they have had their benefits and problems. I have never had any problems with the software I use and Nvidia drivers so perhaps I am just lucky. You "assume" I use my video card for games but actually I only really play Minecraft and puzzle games which hardly stretch the GPU, mostly I use 3D CAD programs, KICAD, drawing programs, rendering suites that use the CUDA cores for acceleration and such, which is where I find the Nvidia cards work best for me.
I did not contradict myself. You can sit through a video and not actually understand it, as you obviously missed the part where it said waydroid only worked well with Intel cards and then went off on some tangent about " What Android apps are you expecting to run on your PCs and laptops that would require NVIDIA support?" which had nothing to do with what I said. To explain it to you, the Android apps don't need the Nvidia support, Waydroid does. So perhaps you should watch the video again, and perhaps understand how waydroid works. Its in a container. If your only option is to use an app its possible that the containerisation would allow you to sandbox it and assess risks. You should know that.
I use my computer to do things, so yes I don't always keep up with the latest in Linux. I am glad you do, although I feel sorry for your customers who have to face your judgemental attitude if your comments to me are anything to go by.
I didn't suggest you didn't know what you were talking about because of lack of experience, I worked that out from what you said in your comments.
And where did I complain that "Every bit of hardware didn't work on Linux" - I very specifically was referring to Waydroid.
Wait until you need the NVidia app for Android to configure your NVidia card.
This is a really cool system for running Android apps on the desktop, but you are totally right. The terminal is cool and go a million cool things, but it is something that the average person will shy away from.
A flatpak/snap/appimage version with F-droid preconfigured and the kinks ironed out could be an absolute boon for developers and anyone else that wants to use Android apps on their computers.
One indirect benefit is accessibility: you can render it larger on a screen with lower resolution.
That sponsor segment was smooth, Nick. Kinda reminded me of Linus a bit.
Great info! Thx! Will try that very soon. 👍 👌
Neat, and on the subject of the portrait mode apps, couldn't you just bind some shortcut keys to use xrandr and force the screen rotation?
Really good video Nick! I don't particularly care about running Android apps on my desktop but it's fun to think about it.
Your videos are the s***! Topics, and production quality are insane. Thank you!
8:50 there is no need to do that long step to install gapps. Waydroid already has a image build with gapps. You just need to modify the init command as follows "sudo waydroid init -s GAPPS -f " and you are good to go. No need to run any extra scrips or blunders. 😉
Or you can go with aurora services
@@dnawalahmed2979 yes but play store feels better.
It didn't work, it told me the image disnt exist :)
@@TheLinuxEXP I have installed it almost 2 months ago maybe the dropped support for that.
@@TheLinuxEXP THAT'S WHY AURORA SERVICES ARE BETTER (joking)
Hey Nick, after watching your video on CLI apps, I already installed tldr, ranger, autojump and thef*uck, and they're really quite cool!
Also, they're all in the fedora repos, so it was extremely easy.
2:15 Dalvik was actually replaced by the android runtime vm in android 4.4 (damn, remember minor updates that were bigger than the major updates of today xD)
Actually Netflix not appearing in the play store is a common problem with lineage os, the play store classifies your phone as "unprotected" and because Netflix fears DRM security it won't appear. However on my phone, installing a slightly outdated netflix apk works like a charm, I don't know about waydroid though.
Netflix playing hard to get when its hard to want
Strange, I got no issue on Grapheneos maybe it's due to Google Sandboxing compare to the use of MicroG on lineage and many other ROMs.
@@obvious_giraffe8386 Netflix be like that cheerleader girl
Great video,, very helpful as usual, thank you! Have you tried installing Outlook app, does it work? I cannot find any normal replacement for Office 365 client on linux and I was wondering if I will be able to use the android app.
Hi Nick, I regularly watch your videos. Recently, my university offered remote connection to their computers via RDP. It turns out that they have RDP with MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) which none of the Linux RDP clients support. In Windows its very easy, however, in Ubuntu none of the existing RDP softwares help me. Have you happened to come across such an app?
"Why would you need a mobile app on a desktop?" is such a wrong mindset. Ideally, there should be an operating system that runs on everything, that will allow you to install same apps across all of your devices, be it mobile/tablet/laptop/desktop. FuchsiaOS is an interesting contender in that direction, its smart and well-designed Flutter-based UI API can make any apps automatically conform to the available screen size on any device. Isolating computing expiriences just because they are "desktop" doesn't make sense, we should strive towards same computing expirience on all devices.
that was basically the idea of Java back in the day as well. problem is that you stiöö have to implement all the apis properly and it obviously comes with a performance hit. but with Android apps now running on windows, windows apps on Linux, web apps running html/js and even some Linux tools that run on termux Android, we are coming closer to a world where the OS doesn't matter
Why clutter the Desktop with shitt Mobile bullshit.
And Fuschia is pretty bullshit a lot of diabolic architecture.
@@engelsteinberg593 Well, because not every application available for PC.
@@engelsteinberg593 If app is mobile, it doesn't mean that it's automatically going to be shit on desktop. It depends on implementation, there are many UI frameworks that allow developing adaptive interfaces that look great on mobile and desktop screens. We should strive towards unified computing, the fracture between desktop and mobile that we have today is not a good thing.
I love you man, I moved from manajro to fedora two months ago...loving it
Android tablets are not that different from iPad when it comes to apps that force portrait mode (these are apps that support padOS and are not iOS apps as those apps can be letterboxed while displaying in landscape), I would prefer if both would allow users the ability to override this setting. There are apps that allow this on Android, but as far as I know, Apple gives the users the middle finger. I bought one of their keyboard cases and it feels like an insult when it forces portrait.
The biggest issue I with padOS is that fact it has 3 different modes for apps: fluid, developer restricted, and iOS. There is no indication to which kind of app you are downloading. I understand that games might want you to play in portrait only, but there are apps that shouldn’t be allowed to force orientation since they should not be any more complex than a website.
My whole point is that iPads are no better when it comes to proper support and I can’t understand why Android tablets get as much negative reviews as they do, my only guess is all the cheap ones are dragging the satisfaction down and those are the ones that people remember.
I would buy an Android tablet again if they would build ones with the latest version of Android and use high end SoCs.
Having grew up with a Samsung Tablet for 5 years, then using an iPad from 2018 till now, I was patient with my slow old Android tablet but when I got my iPad dang it was fast and smooth, I almost became an Apple fanboy but my wallet doesn’t support that. I thought that Android tablets were still slow but Android smartphones have improved so obviously Tablets also improved.
Now after a few years with Apple’s keyboard cover for the iPad Pro, I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND IT to anyone. Mine’s already really tethered (even my mom’s keyboard cover is falling off tho it mostly sits on the shelf) and it doesn’t work anymore after a year (iirc) probably because of corrosion on the folds (there’s a youtube video fixing it with copper tape). I also have a few scratches but that’s my fault since I use it for school and moved it around a lot but besides the keyboard (which was good but not on the long term), the iPad user experience is great.
I wish to go back to Android for the customizability (why did I update to iPadOS 15 where I can’t jailbreak it thus can’t run VMs smoothly) but with hardware as good as Apple (also the price)
@@takmhz4918 I am glad to hear that someone else loves Apple hardware but not the software.
Does it consume ~800MB of RAM in the background like Windows Subsystem for Android?
Interesting… the case for making the jump from windows to Linux is getting better. Wish the same was true for iCloud/macOS path, but small steps
Re 8:50 - Arch-based distros do seem to have a simpler way to get the Google apps installed in the form of the “waydroid-image-gapps” AUR package. But because it’s Arch-specific, not exactly something that users of anything else can take advantage of.
If Waydroid can be installed in Win10's WSL too?
Also if Waydroid can be keyboard mapped as well?
A Very Good Channel for the Linux Guys who want to see some features about Linux. You Always Upload very Good Content about Linux and show how interesting the Linux is.
It doesn't work on ubuntu 22 or pop-os 22, the python3-gbinder package is not supported yet
This just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
I'm surprised it is working that way, mainly because Android uses Linux users and group IDs to contain applications in the sandbox. When you install an app, a new Linux user is created just for that app. Btw, Dalvik VM is dead a long time back. ART (Android Runtime) is it's replacement. Kernel is stripped of a lot of drivers as space is a constraint in mobile hardware and instead, pluggable drivers are implemented. Android device manufacturers will include drivers for the hardware that they are using. LibC is gone, partly due to un-needed extra functionality and mainly due to licencing issues. Instead, Google's own implementation called as Bionic (which offers a subset of LibC) is used. So there is still a long way to go on that part.
One thing as an Android app developer I could make use of this, is to automate instrumented test cases for applications that I develop, which is possible if WayDroid exports the ADB interface, as often times, we would like to have these tests running in the CI/CD pipeline and it is hard to hook real devices there. We do have other working alternatives such as Roboelectric for that matter though, or we can simply mock Android APIs with mocking frameworks. Other than that, I don't see a proper need.
If you are lazy to reach your device and would like to run your apps on system, then a better alternative would be to keep an actual device, and then mirror it to the desktop using Scrcpy, which is a FOSS tool. You get a window which mirrors your device, and your physical keyboard and mouse can be used to simulate touch events and key events there. Since the processing is going on a real device, you won't get into a ton of issues either. There is also a Flatpak for this one, which makes installation pretty easy.
Very informative.
Do you know an alternative android store, that supports payed apps/in-app purchases?
If I'm not mistaken I think you can't find Netflix because it uses a kind of drm which waydroid may not emulate and therefore is not listed as it sees your "device" as incompatible. I am not 100% certain though.
I think a very good use case for waydroid is using it in conjuction with something like postmarketOS on actual mobile devices. That would allow us to run Android apps whilst not sacrificing privacy and functionality, like we're forced to currently with Android.
Waydroid is running nicely on Ubuntu Touch
There are some pinephone pro videos on yt where they showcase functioning apps. The "only" hurdles that need to be fixed for acceptable use are 1. waydroid apps to work when phone is in standby mode (progress being made alreay) 2. fixing hardware acceleration (will enable graphics intense apps to be used as well, not just simple ones). I'm already sold on these being fixed in the coming months so i ordered my pinehone pro developer edition :)
@@Lumpology This was my first thought. I'd like to get away from the Android Googleplex in a meaningful way on my mobile device, but some non-Google apps will be needed for daily usability. This is the missing link to a daily driver Linux-powered smartphone.
Really interesting, how does Waydroid compare to Anbox?
I installed Waydroid on ubuntu 22.04 but looks like internet is not connected. If i try to switch wifi on it will turn off right after. How could i solve ?
do you know how to configure "adb connect ip-waydroid" ?
So far I haven't been able to get it to work.
I think you could set up the waydroid service to start up automatically as part of the boot process
Yea, that's just systemctl enable (rather than start. Just note enable doesn't start, but it does on reboot)
I don't think you'd want to always want to start the android emu at bootup, a better way in my opinion would be to add
alias android='systemctl start whatever'
In your ~/.bashrc in a new line so you can open it with a short easy to remember comman
@@t8db just append - -now to the enable command and it will enable + start at the same time
Debian :)
I'm excited for this to become more mainstream and polished. I can think of a lot of instances where the desktop versions of mobile apps are just much worse.
I really hope this project grows into something much bigger and easier to use.
Sometimes there are not even desktop apps.
3:41 worth mentioning that Andbox, the thing Waydroid is based on, works on Xorg
6:00 I get that you like universal packaging formats, but they are not the solution to everything... The convuluted installation process has little to do with the packaging format. Classic distro packages can automatically run the required command during package installation. Waydroid only needs to improve its packages, or better, shouldn't make it necessary to run "waydroid init" at all. Also, Flatpaks and Snaps are containerised formats and usually don't work well with containers manager themselves. It's just that Waydroid is still in development, that's all.
8:50 you should make it clear that that script installs a bunch of stuff that could be harmful to normal users, like Magisk (a root manager)! By the way, a more user friendly approach to installing the Google Play Services would be preinstalling a compatibility layer that would allow users to install the Play Store like any other app (kinda like GrapheneOS, a custom Android version, already does). No random, unsafe scripts involved :)
1. unfortunately, anbox is severely dated, and for the most part superseded by waydroid (waydroid claims to be its successor)
2. waydroid init is what sets up the container itself and all necessary files, so making it execute automatically may be cumbersome, especially for power users
3. yup :)
@@harshsrivastava9570 1. Yeah, but still better than nothing
2. I actually don't know much about how waydroid works. Is waydroid init supposed to be executed only once? If so, the installation script could run it automatically. If it had to be run on every reboot / every time you restart the container, why can't it be put in ExecStartPre= in the systemd unit? Why would it create issues for power users?
Hey very good video and waydroid is awesome! Still has some minor bugs (I had to disable hardware acceleration on 6700XT to make it work) but it already performs incredible. I think it has a very promising future.
Hey is there a key mapper to play games? i have a spare laptop with Intel graphics. I want to try games
Last time I tried Waydroid it can not install ARM apks, and looks like it still do not have out of the box ARM emulation supported yet.
Have you tested some small games like Crossing Road? Does it work?
I hope so, I would like to have a pure linux phone - i only would need access to one or two android apps anyways, so if we can get proper support (not emulated) and it runs as fast as on android, i would love to switch to something like pinephone.
What is the distro you use in vid
100% agree. GUI is better for single instance install/downloads. For power use, command line CAN be faster, but only if you really know what you're doing and aren't a casual user (seriously linux users, stop hating the normies).
Looking forward to a flatpak future. It's better for security, and modern computers are powerful enough to take the performance hit.
The fact that Linux is still having the GUI v. Command Line Debate is what keeps it from being adopted by "Normies" App Stores and Web Downloads (and previously CDs) won out because of the ease of installation.
I was thinking maybe i could attempt to make an installer gui myself, but that would be quite the hassle since I'm a student with limited time and experience making this kind of thing.
Thank you, Nick. There are some great Android apps and it would be great for Linux adoption. But I don't think I'd use any.
Funny, The reason why I left Linux was because I needed android to read manga and my installation of manjaro gnome broke after installing Virtualbox (No seriously a simple pacman -Ss Virtualbox left gnome in an unusable state where i could only see my wallpaper). Currently I do have debian Gnome on my SD card so I'm going to check on it now
Try scrcpy and just use your phone on full screen while its charging
I recall Tachidesk is now exist.
It's compatible with Tachiyomi reader derivative, and support all website extension.
Y’all two have some nice app suggestions, I might check them out but the device I’m referring to is my surface go 2, which kinda nerfs both Apps. Scrcpy is implying I’m going to carry around my android and connecting it to my computer which is good when I’m at a desk or something but when I’m reading berserk on the train my LG (which I don’t even carry around anymore) has a loose usb c port, and though I’ve got a long cable, even connecting my external hdd on the train is weird sometimes. And tachidesk sounds really good, like really really good, I’m a Mac user so I can actually prop that up in my 27” iMac and get to reading without even having too boot into windows (stupid proprietary bluestacks) but Linux has bottom tier touch support, like Debian is quite literally my best touch experience on Linux and it still equates to 1/2 as good as windows 10’s experience, I will try both of them out though
this is something I've been waiting for ages!
wallpapers?
and what linux he uses?
I use X11 and I still can use Waydroid. All it takes is just using some nested Wayland compositor, like Weston for example. Weston runs in a window, so I don't even have problems with portrait-oriented apps.
9:58 I'm assuming this means Waydroid FAILS SafetyNet checks.
SafetyNet checks usually partially fail in custom ROMs of Android, especially if a rooting module is present (and is not masked), and applications like Pokemon GO, the Play Store, and so on are said to use it to restrict application availability in the Play Store (and softlock the whole UI in Pokemon GO's case) at the developers' discretion.
Therefore, Netflix wouldn't be there as it is a well-known case of an application in the Play Store set to hide on SafetyNet-failing Android devices.
You can check SafetyNet's status by getting *SafetyNet Test* from the Play Store.
Can you root waydroid with magisk so I can flash UA-cam Vance module?
Wasn't Dalvik deprecated with Android 5.0 and replaced with the Android RunTime (ART) java vm?
Yeah, it was, my bad!
@@TheLinuxEXP Here is a good explainer-video on the difference between Dalvik and ART, since I also struggeld in the beginning with the differences: ua-cam.com/video/0J1bm585UCc/v-deo.html
I love that you searched for Lorient in Google Maps, my grandma lived there before. I wasn't ready to see you search for a French city, lol
Hahah I live in Brest, it's pretty close to it!
@@TheLinuxEXP oh, that's funny!
Could you make a video on how to install NVIDIA drivers on Fedora 36 once it releases? I am struggeling so much with this. They really need the one click install like ubuntu.
Thanks for the vid ☺️
The setup process of waydroid is NOT solved by changing the packaging format. Given that it probably interacts a bunch with other parts of the system, the one thing that snaps, flatpaks and to some extent appimages are exceptionally bad at, it would probably decrease stability and speed by a ton. Most likely the devs couldn't be bothered because there are more urgent problems that need solving. A GUI setup using polkit is really easy and simple to implement, I'm guessing it will definitely happen as the project matures
both in competition to chromebooks and Android tablets / phones this could be huge.
is there an alternitive for x11 I use an nvidia graphics card and kde doesn't like it
is very usefull. Specially with stuff like authentication apps. Some apps like twitch are better to see the chat then the desktiop.
this is so perfectly timed. just last night I was wondering if there was a way to run the Xbox android app natively on Linux so I can talk to my friends on party chat while gaming. my current workaround is to run an androidx86 vm with my mic passed in but as you might be able to tell it kinda sucks. I also just so happen to be using wayland as well. I really hope this works
Could you use wine to run bluestacks?
Distro "Big Linux" comes with Waydroid pre-installed running on Weston
Can I run this on M1 Macbook in a virtual machine?
How do games perform? Like Honkai Impact 3rd? Or the like? Just wondering.
What distro are you using in the video?
Fedora
how about the chomebooks Linux beta function?
What distro are you using and it is GNOME 42?
He uses Fedora at the moment.
certain apps don't work/show up in the play store because the system doesn't pass the safetynet check. idk if it passes by default on waydroid but it definitely won't pass with magisk installed. it can be bypassed easily with dedicated magisk modules
Pretty sweet on steam deck. Hope there's a way to force a portrait (not rotated like Duolingo) app to landscape
Great, you explain lot of things
waydroid as flatpak would be awesome... but the kernel modules might cause issues, it would still not be one-click like other flatpaks
whats wrong with it being a normal binary?
@@SomeRandomPiggo it needs some kernel modules which aren't included by default and is also modular with variants like vanilla, gapps, magisk
Flatpak wouldnt actually work, as flatpak itself is a container, your container will not get root access to the host system, which waydroid requires, ( waydroid is also a container in itself ), there is an issue on the waydroid repository about flatpak support and currently its not feasible, as waydroid as a flatpak, would be technically a container inside a container.
nice, waydroid needs more yt coverage
Can I use this with Linux mint?
good video but it can be better with the mention of required kernel modules ashem and binder
What does fyde os use
Can you run both wayland and X?
Try rotation control apps for the landscape mode
I'm glad you tried the Xbox cloud Gaming as it's the only app I would have an use of. The edge version is very blurry :(
10:05 this can be for the safetynet and selinux with magisk is solvable but it can't flash zip on waydroid
You can force rotation with an app
I suggest to firstly use Genymotion on Linux. Although not opensource, it is very stable. We could patiently wait until a stable open source project.
However, there is a kind of issue I could not solve. I want the emulated phone to scan the QR code on computer screen, with a virtual camera streaming the screen image. But I failed. Although there are many tutorials about this, I still could not configure it on my Ubnutu 20.04.
You may ask why I need to sreaming the QR code? The QR code on my computer screen refreshes to a new image every 2 or 3 mintues. If you want to use an image file, you have to take a screen shot, transfer the file to the emulated phone, and select the image on the phone. This entire process is time consuming, you have to be in a hurry to scan the image before refreshing. The hurry behaviour makes the using experience terrible, and tortures your patience.
I just use scrcpy with a raspberry pi so i can use a phone (any without hdmi out) while it is charging and you have keyboard and mouse control over your phone
why do we have to start the service everytime cant it just be enabled using systemd?
Yes, you can: sudo systemctl enable waydroid-container.service
Fantastic overview of Android versus GNU/Linux
You can run Waydroid in X11, you have to install "weston" first and run Waydroid inside weston container, it's just 3 simple commands